false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176750940m/650653.jpg 650653 2 "He married her because she was rich" is the author's bleak assessment of her handsome, unfaithful father's relationship with her unhappy, insecure mother. Anne Roiphe describes with equally brutal candor a childhood largely spent with the governess until she was old enough to mix her mother's drinks, light cigarettes, and listen to complaints about her father. In this grim environment, Roiphe and her sickly younger brother did not band together so much as coexist in mutual misery. She seems to find redemption in the trio of deaths that close the book. Her parents died from cancer; her father disinherited his children in favor of his second wife. Her brother, a doctor infected with AIDS from cutting himself in his lab, ordered a funeral without any words: "The God who would do this to him deserved only silence." So why read this angst fest? Because Roiphe is just as honest about her own efforts to escape her gilded cage on New York's Upper East Side, and because she captures the social and historical particulars of wealthy Jewish American life from the 1930s on in the same richly textured detail she brought to feminist classics like <I>Up the Sandbox</I>. "I am a writer, and burning bridges behind me is part of the cost of the work," she comments. She burns them with sorrowful panache in this chilling, engrossing memoir. <I>--Wendy Smith</I> 636789 1999 1185 Park Avenue: A Memoir total:58|5:8|4:21|3:19|2:9|1:1| 58 200 90 12 3 1 false false Mon Jan 05 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 16 12:52:49 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 05 10:58:54 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Wed Jun 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu May 28 21:35:38 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 04 11:57:09 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jul 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 18 03:34:05 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 18 03:40:00 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat Sep 19 05:00:02 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 19 05:01:12 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Jun 28 18:23:50 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 28 18:24:49 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Apr 01 17:51:09 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 01 17:52:28 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Apr 24 16:39:16 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 24 16:40:30 -0700 2008 2 0 false false Wed Sep 10 05:47:41 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 24 09:06:10 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 27 03:05:06 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 27 03:06:56 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Tue Jun 17 19:03:50 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 25 14:35:00 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Mon Jun 11 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Nov 11 19:49:52 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 11 19:50:57 -0800 2008 5 0 false false Sat Aug 09 08:11:40 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 09 08:11:57 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Tue Nov 10 10:19:17 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 10 10:19:17 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon Nov 09 06:47:55 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 09 06:48:11 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sun Oct 18 15:07:16 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 18 15:07:20 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sat Oct 10 17:46:45 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 10 17:46:45 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Sep 28 20:14:31 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 28 20:14:31 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Sep 27 15:49:37 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 27 15:49:37 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Wed Sep 09 15:17:37 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 09 15:17:37 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Aug 07 14:17:37 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 07 14:17:37 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=650653